Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose

universe conformably to this view, provided God
sees fit to render his thought effective and to produce the substance." God often does see fit—as
witness the endless "substances" of the great century of New Meanings.

No wonder so many nineteenth-century writers
were prodigious in output. A shift in the angle of
approach must disclose an infinity of ways in which
our former classifications can be reclassified. After
a lifetime of productivity we find Bentham wishing
that he could become a dozen selves, since his perspective showed him that he had work for all. Indeed, he has in time become thousands of selves, as Darwin also has.

V
SECULAR CONVERSIONS

The Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis

IN CLOSING this section, perhaps we should study
that region in which interpretation and therapy most
clearly converge: those secular bringers of good
tidings, the psychoanalysts. From our standpoint,
psychoanalysis can be treated as a simple technique
of non-religious conversion. It effects its cures by
providing a new perspective that dissolves the system of pieties lying at the roots of the patient's sor

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